Wednesday Sketch & Chill

Hey. Happy Wednesday, January 21, 2026. Yeah, I forgot what day it was. It's been a long day. So, anyway, hope you're doing good. Hope you're doing great on this Wednesday evening. It's chilly here in New Jersey. We're expecting. It looks like a whole heck of a heap of snow this coming weekend, so that'll be interesting. But if you don't know who I am, my name is Jason Nicholas. I am here with the Inkspired Life, where I love sketching, especially sketching architecture. Sketching for me is. It's therapeutic, it's creative, it's brainstorming, it's problem solving, it's capturing moments in time. Sketching is so powerful. And my approach to sketching is imperfection. Yeah. And I'm going to show you. We're going to do a sketchbook tour tonight of the oldest sketchbook I still own. This was done way back in college. So I'm going to kind of do a quick tour through here. I think it'd be fun to. To walk down memory lane together for a little bit. And, yeah, let's just go from there and maybe we'll do a quick sketch as well. So I hope you're having a great day. Hope everything's awesome in your. In your part of the world. And if not, we all have the ability to go inside or, you know, deep inside and just make the best of whatever is happening our way. Awesome. All right, let's do a quick little sketchbook tour. I've showed this before, but I kind of. I like to revisit old sketchbooks because it just takes me back in time. It. It's kind of a mental and creative journey of where I started and where I'm at. And a reminder. A reminder of why I started and why I still do love to do sketching. All right, so let's. Let's dig in and take a little tour. So this sketchbook has seen better days. The COVID is kind of coming off. One of these days, I think I'm going to get it bound somehow. Maybe leather bound. I think that'd be amazing. So we're going to just look through here a little bit. So on the inside cover, it says fourth year, second semester. So I was in architecture school for five years. So this was my. Wait, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. What do they call the fifth year senior, senior? I don't even know. So it was my fourth year of college, second semester. 1. This sketchbook is from. My professor was George or Jorge Hernandez. Class act, really amazing, cool person. And let's look at kind of my first sketch in here. I'm not sure what the top one is, but it looks like I was maybe sketching the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty. So I have always loved sketching a Statue of Liberty. Right. So this is probably one of the very, very first attempts of me ever sketching the statue. And then we went from this back in. What year was this? 90. I think this was 93. We'll say 93 for now. And then we went from that statue to the torch. So it's kind of cool to see where I started and where I'm at. But you also noticed a lot of my sketching style from way back when is still happening today. All right, so I'm just going to flip through not every single page. Some. There's some college notes in here. I don't know if you want to see my college notes, Chris. I'm going to house sketch. I did. Let's see. I. I know two of my favorite sketches of all time are in here. My top number one and two of all time are actually in this sketchbook, something I treasure and value. And God forbid there's ever I want to think about this. God forbid I ever need to leave this house in an emergency with one sketchbook or I can only take one sketchbook with me. What's that question? If you can. If you're on a deserted island, you can only have, like, three things with you. This would be one of the things I need. I'm just going to close this window here. Hopefully you guys can hear me. Okay, So this sketchbook was architecture school. I think that's upside down, actually. Just sketching ideas. Some of these may have been sketches I was designing for a project. I think this may have been a market. We were designing a marketplace or a farmer's market, if I remember. So some sketch ideas, me maybe talking with a professor and just going over thoughts in my brain. So I had to really learn how to sketch quick to just communicate ideas. Architecture, right, Is very, very, very visual. It's always fun looking down here. So I love to. To this day, my favorite types of drawings or sketches. Let's talk. Let's actually talk about that for a sec. So when I say sketch and drawing, in my brain, that's two different things. And these aren't dictionary definitions. It's just how I feel. So when I say the word sketch, sketching for me is something fast, loose, and quick. So that's sketching. When I. When I hear the word drawing, Drawing in my brain is something that's slower, more methodical. That's a cool word, by the way. Methodical. It's more methodical, more technical, more precise. So drawing for drawing in my brain equals technical. Sketching equals imperfection. Fast, loose, quick. So these are my. Still my favorite types of sketches to do are these little thumbnail sketches. I have even smaller ones, I think in here. Just to capture the vibe of something in a really small footprint on your page. I love thumbnail sketches. You can see these are some of my first early attempts at sketching architectural people. And this is a one point perspective. So you. You guys see me doing one point perspectives a lot today. Let's pull one out, more modern one. This is kind of cool. It's turning out to be like a where I was and what I do now kind of thing. So here's kind of a modern day perspective that I do of the Brooklyn Bridge. Right? So one point perspective. Kind of looking back and you see, you can see early stages of me trying to sketch one point perspectives right here. Again, I'm gonna skip through some of this stuff. I'm saving the best for last, so save the best for last. Let's see, this one I love. All right, this is a really cool example of a thumbnail sketch. I was just talking about one of my faves. Yeah. So this is 1993, right? There's 93. I love this. Here's my thumb. Right. They call thumbnail sketches because they're really small, like your thumbnail. This is much bigger, but you get the idea. It's a really tiny sketch. I'll bring it closer. This is for a man. I forget what project this was a design project. So this is interior perspective of courtyard looking towards back of the building with auditorium in center. So there's like a kind of outdoor stage here. Pretty. Pretty cool, fun little sketch. You see some more on this page as well. Here again, you know, another one point perspective. Me trying to figure it out. Laying out something here. Maybe a poster I was gonna draw or pieces for a model. Yeah, we're going way back, guys. I don't remember. All these sketches are for. Here's just. Cool. Another little perspective. This is actually one of my. Not the top two favorites. This is one of my favorite thumbnail type of sketches here. Love it. And I still sketch this style today, so it hasn't really changed. Another small perspective. And then I showed you that one. Getting closer to my faves. Let's see. Feel free to say hello, leave any questions or comments for Me. These are some cool sketches. This is from a conceptual museum we were designing. Really fast. Loose, right? Boom, boom. Loving it. Love these little sketches. There's another one here. A few more. I like these. These are me. This is me being a little. Even more scriblier. Scribbler. What's the plural of scribble? Not plural. Scribbler would be an adjective. Adverb. I don't know. I don't know any of my ELA teachers can set me straight on that. These are cool. These are some of my favorite little thumbnails. These are different studies of stairways in this museum building. All right, let's see what else we got. These are all from that museum project. I wish I had taken pictures of the model of this model. This came out cool. I don't. I don't have any. I love this sketch here. All right, let's. We're gonna skip to my favorite. I'm working. I work backwards a little bit. We'll go. You may have heard me tell this story before, and I'll tell it again because it's kind of important to me and where I started. This was 1993 in the summer, and I was working in Hoboken for an architect kind of an internship in the summer. So during my lunch breaks, I would walk over to Stevens Institute on the bank of the Hudson river and look across towards the New York City skyline. So this was a quick sketch I did. This particular day was. I remember, a rainy day, but this is one of the sketches I did looking towards the skyline. And then. And then this is my second favorite sketch of all time. So number two, same day, same location. This is a quick, kind of loose sketch of the New York City skyline. And if you look, the Empire State Building is pretty prominent here. You can see the Chrysler Building way, way. I love this sketch. I remember being there on that day sketching this rainy young architect full of dreams. Full of dreams of designing and changing the world. And, yeah, it was a good time. Good time in my life. And then my number one favorite, favorite sketch of all time is right here. Same day. When I look at this sketch, I could get. I get goosebumps on this. Hey. Hey, Andrew. Good to see you. Hope all's well. So number one favorite sketch of all time, 1993 again, same place, Stevens Institute. Standing there while I was an architect intern, looking across at the NYC skyline. And we have the World Trade center, right? This is Obviously pre. Pre 9 11. We have the original Twin Towers. And I do get goosebumps. Thinking about this and being able and fortunate enough and being blessed to have been here at this time capturing it in sketch form before 911 happened. So sketching is a really powerful way to ingrain a place, a moment in time into your brain and into your soul. For me, unlike a photograph and I love photography, I take lots and lots and lots of pictures, especially of buildings. But when I draw it, it sticks here and here much, much more stronger than if snapping a picture. So number one sketch of all time. Really blessed to have it. Andrew says everything's well, having a good night. I love the sketches. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. That's so cool. This was a fun project. I was working on that summer and just helping to add an addition onto a house. So that's just a quick tour of my oldest sketchbook I still own. And it's memories like this that mean the world to me. So thank you for joining me on that quick sketchbook tour. It's 9:47. I'm going to just do a quick sketch. I don't know what I'm going to sketch. It might even just be a scribble just to get wind down. I'm getting ready for for bed soon. I was at school until like seven something tonight, which was cool. One of my students asked if I'd go to the to watch her wrestling match. So I went, which was fun. So it's been a long day. I'm tired, so I'm gonna head off soon. But we're gonna use the scrap paper and just kind of sketch on it. So let's do it. No plan, no game plan. It turns out to be nothing. Nothing is still something, right? Don't feel like you always need to be creating, sketching, drawing something specific. Throw down lines, throw down color, put dots on the page. It doesn't matter. It's all about just connecting, connecting your brain, connecting your hand, your eyes, your heart to a piece of paper. I'm just going to zoom in so you can see this closer. If I can find, I don't think I turn on the zoom app thingy. We are connecting. All right, cool. I can zoom in now. All right, cool. So you can see this is basically a scrap piece of paper. This is when I made that, this stamp and I was kind of practicing and testing things out. So let's just mess around. I got some music on and I'm gonna just rewind it, go back a couple songs. I don't know why, but I just love Bittersweet Symphony. I listen to this song a few times a day. It's one of my favorite songs. So I'm gonna play that and I'm gonna sketch with a red pen. Why? Because I grabbed it again. Not really gonna sketch anything special. I might even just throw lines down and I'll be quiet for a few minutes as I just kind of get lost on the paper. We'll do a little asmr. I'll bring this down. It's. It's. All right. Cool. Here's what I ended up with. So just threw down some colors, some marker, and just because the way my brain's wired, I started seeing a skyscraper. So I tried to pull out some of the shapes, an outline in black maybe, you know, kind of looking at a perspective. So a two point perspective. This is one side, another side of the building, just some yellow in the background to kind of pop it out a little bit more. So that's fun. So that was just kind of really not pre planning and just letting go for a few minutes and throwing down some lines and colors and sometimes it end up ends up looking like something and sometimes it doesn't. And it's all perfectly okay. It's about imperfection, not perfection, about embracing the moment, just getting lost for a few in a different world. It's a great way for me to wind down at the end of the day. And I think that's going to be a wrap for today. Appreciate you guys watching. Thank you so much. Remember, until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively. And my light went off, so that means it's ten o' clock. And inspire endlessly.